Silicon Valley schools seek taxes for classrooms, teachers

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Artist’s rendering of the student union being constructed at Yerba Buena
High School, financed by voter-approved bonds. East Side Union High School
District officials hope that voters pass Measure Z, a $510 million bond
measure that could enable the district to convert libraries or cafeterias
into student unions at other high schools. (Drawing courtesy East Side
Union High School District)

Silicon Valley is humming. Its public schools enjoy high approval ratings. And tax-friendly voters are expected to flock to the polls for the presidential election.

With the table set for an appeal to raise school taxes, school officials in 13 districts from San Jose to Daly City are seeking voter approval for taxes that would help modernize classrooms, hire more teachers, update technology and give employees raises.

Six bond measures and seven parcel taxes are on the Nov. 8 ballot in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Backers of the taxes hope voters will stay true to their historic generosity to schools.

The East Side Union High School District in San Jose is seeking more than half a billion dollars for Measure Z — its third bond measure in four years and its fifth in 14 years.

Next door, the San Jose Unified School District is asking voters to approve a $72 annual parcel tax, which would be the district’s first. After a failed attempt in 2003 and then years of discouraging polling, officials finally caught a glimmer of hope that the district might win what most neighboring districts have: a supplemental local source of revenue. It would generate $5 million annually and, like other parcel taxes, require a two-thirds vote.

The biggest factor in improving student achievement is the quality of the teachers, said school board member Susan Ellenberg.

“Great teachers produce great outcomes,” she said.

A similar message is being touted by backers of the Oak Grove elementary district’s Measure EE, a $132 annual parcel tax for nine years. In addition to an existing $68 parcel tax, the measure is intended to make salaries competitive, but also help the elementary district cope with steadily declining enrollment.

It’s losing about 260 students a year, but its budget can’t be cut fast enough to keep up with the revenue loss, Superintendent Jose Manzo said.

The Los Altos School District is seeking support for Measure GG, an eight-year, $223 parcel tax. That’s $30 more than the existing tax — an increase that benefits students of Bullis Charter School. Campaign Chair Vaishali Sirkay said that unlike a bond measure two years ago, Measure GG is not encountering resistance from voters angry at Bullis, whose backers repeatedly sued the district over facilities and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees.

Others seeking voter generosity include the San Jose-Evergreen Community College District, whose $748 million Measure X would authorize nearly three times its previous bond measure, which passed in 2010.

“It’s absolutely in keeping with the need that was identified in our facilities master plan,” Chancellor Debbie Budd said.

None of that resonates with Mark Hinkle, president of the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association. He authored the arguments against eight of the nine school tax measures in Santa Clara County.

He’s particularly opposed to funding technology with bonds, which may take 30 years or more to be paid off. Technology hardware may last five years, but taxpayers will be paying for it for decades, he pointed out.

“That seems to be an egregious use of bond issues,” Hinkle said.

He acknowledges, however, that he would oppose new taxes no matter what they bought.

“Taxation is theft,” he said. “There’s no ifs ands or buts about that.”

Bond campaigns avoid explaining the total costs of school bonds. East Side touts its Measure Z, for example, as costing $30 per $100,000 assessed valuation. But added to the debt service on six previous bond measures that East Side taxpayers are still paying, and the total next year will come to $124.37 per $100,000 assessed valuation.

That means the owner of a home assessed at $437,000 — the average in the district — will pay about $544 annually for debt service. And that doesn’t include the bond costs for the elementary districts feeding into East Side, which could almost double a homeowner’s bond tab.

Frank Biehl, an East Side trustee, defended East Side’s bond costs. He pointed out that districts with lower values have a smaller tax base to absorb bond costs, and thus tax rates end up higher than those in pricey neighborhoods.

Besides, “it’s just responsible to maintain the capital investment that we have,” he said. “Who benefits from that? It’s people who own property.”

That message also helps reach the great majority of voters who don’t have kids in schools. To persuade them, canvassers also stress that strong schools enhance the community and that parcel tax revenues go directly to schools without being routed through Sacramento.

“Local control local funding is a very powerful statement,” said Zeke Mead, a parent who’s heading the campaign for Measure U, which would renew and increase to $85 an annual parcel tax for 14 years in the Redwood City School District.

School districts balance the need to repair and upgrade classrooms and school grounds with voters’ tolerance for taxes. In the growing Burlingame School District, Measure M would generate $56 million, but still cover only one-third of the capital needs at its six elementary schools and one middle school, Assistant Superintendent Gaby Heller said.

However urgent schools’ needs, their message may be drowned out by multiple noisy campaigns. And boosters of school tax measures worry that voters will be exhausted, bored or fed up with taxes after slogging through other races and measures.

“We’re at the very end of the ballot,” said Reid Myers, in charge of the Sunnyvale School District’s Measure BB $59 parcel tax campaign.

So she’s seized upon a mantra: “Start at the back of the ballot to put kids first.”

Sharon Noguchi covers preschool through high school for the Bay Area News Group. She's written about teen stress, high-school cheating, Common Core and teacher tenure. She also runs workshops aimed at developing high school journalists.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said there was nothing wrong with the officials expressing “private political views via private text messages.” Strzok, in particular, “did not say anything about Donald Trump that the majority of Americans weren’t also thinking at the same time,” he said.